War Story Pt I
by MAC-V
Summary: They say that nothing can keep the Hunter from his prey.
1. Default Chapter

June 17, 1944  
  
Normandy, france  
  
Demona crouched in the shadows near the hedgerow, watching as the line of armored vehicles ground by.  
  
Somehow the Vehicle's had gotten behind her, and only her keen sense of hearing had prevented her from being caught in front of them.  
  
The line of passing vehicle ground to a halt. Demona could make out the Black and white crosses on their sides. A half-track stopped in front of Demona, and she could hear the guttural language of the passengers, Germans. She saw the insignia on one of the soldier's collar tabs, two runic S's like lighting bolts. Waffen SS troopers. Great. She had seen Viking berserkers who displayed less savagery then SS troopers  
  
Demona heard the drone of new engines, different from those that the Germans used.  
  
Was that why this column had stopped? There was no way that these SS trooper's could have heard them before her... an SS officer ran down the line of armored vehicles, pounding on their sides and giving orders.  
  
Armored cars and half-tracks pulled off the road, driving through breaks in the hedgerows to the fields behind.  
  
"Raus!! Schnell!! Tommy's ein der strasse!!" the officer reached the half-track in front of Demona.  
  
"Los!" he pointed at the hedgerow where Demona was hiding. A full squad of SS soldiers leaped from the Half track and took cover in the undergrowth. Demona sat completely still, barely breathing as the SS men dug in all around her. Demona, for once, was lucky. In the darkness none of the SS troopers saw her. She slowly crept away from the edge of the hedgerow, and lay prone in the ditch at the bottom. Then, inch by inch, Demona began to crawl away from the dug in SS. Ten meters away she crawled back onto the road, and began to sneak down the road, away from the German soldiers. So focused was she on moving quietly she didn't notice the column of vehicles until it was to late. She froze like a dear in the headlights that suddenly lit up the roadbed.  
  
"I've got you now Demon!" A voice boomed from behind the headlights.  
  
Why do they always show up at times like these? Demona wondered. Then she had an idea,  
  
"Like hell you do!" Demona shouted back, then turned and ran back the way she had come, getting on all fours to gain speed.  
  
"After her!!" , Jeeps and half track's took off after Demona, with the Hunter in the lead.  
  
The hedgerows erupted in gunfire, red tracers ripped through the air, bullets riddled the jeeps, a Panzer Faust anti-tank rocket smacked into one of the British half tracks, turning it into a flaming wreck. A few soldiers managed to get out of their vehicles and return fire, but were scythed down by machine guns almost as soon as they fired.  
  
Miraculously the Hunters Jeep and one half track burst through this corridor of death and kept chasing Demona, even as their comrades were being wiped out. Demona rounded a corner of the hedgerow, and skidded to a stop, staring in awe at the massive shape the loomed in front of her. Suddenly a dozen points of sharp, stabbing pain erupted in her back. Demona fell to the ground.   
  
"Yer mine Demon." the Hunter gloated. "After all this......." the Hunters eyes widened. "Dear god in heaven"  
  
In front of his Jeep, brightly illuminated by his headlights, was a Panther tank.  
  
"Back up!" the Hunter ordered, too late, the Panthers gun roared, sending a high explosive shell into the half track.   
  
"Good god!" a soldier in the jeep yelled, then the Panthers ball turret machine gun raked the Jeep with bullets.  
  
Demona awoke slowly, as her vision cleared she remembered what had happened.   
  
The massive tank was gone, but it's victims remained. The half track was a burnt out shell, and the Jeep had been pushed off the road. Demona rushed over to the jeep and began to pull bodies out of it. Four young soldier's, British judging by the uniforms and equipment. But the Hunter wasn't there.  
  
"Godammit", Demona cursed, her eyes glowed red, and she began to bash one of the dead British soldiers heads' against the jeep.  
  
She was so carried away with rage that she didn't see the soldiers that moved out from the hedgerows.  
  
CLICK, the metallic noise of a safety being taken off a gun penetrated Demona's anger.   
  
"Hande hoch!" a gruff voice ordered.  
  
Demona whirled, charging at the Germans. An SS trooper threw himself to the ground, barely dodging Demona's rage-fueled attack. Demona turned and lunged at another trooper, slashing him across the chest with her talons. The trooper fell to the ground, screaming. Demona grabbed another SS grenadier but the trooper grabbed his double edged fighting knife out his uniform tunic and slashed Demonas wrist, cutting her tendons. The SS trooper managed to get away, Demona used her tail to trip another SS trooper that had tried to get behind her but before she could finish him, he pulled a Walther pistol and emptied it into her chest at near point blank range, the flurry of light nine-millimeter rounds had little effect on the extremely angry, and immortal, gargoyle but the temporary halt in Demona's attack gave the patrols machine gunner the time he needed to level his MG-42, and begin firing . Demona was knocked to the ground by the sheer volume of fire, than the rest of the patrol opened fire, their K-98 rifle's, STG-44 assault rifle's, and MP-40 machine pistol's adding their voices to the MG-42s . The sheer volume of fire was such that Demona was actually ripped apart by bullets. The din of gunfire slowly fell away, than ceased.   
  
An SS trooper walked up to Demona's shattered corpse and prodded her with his rifle.  
  
"What should we do with this thing?" the young grenadier asked  
  
The patrols Sergeant looked at the battered body . A body that was obviously not human.   
  
"Put it on a poncho, we'll take it to Haupstrumfuhrer."  
  
The Waffen SS troopers lifted Demona's corpse and tossed it into a Zehltbahn shelter half.  
  
The patrol didn't notice the British officer hiding in the nearby undergrowth.  
  
Major Basil Canmore began to walk back to his battalion.  
  
Two hours later, at an abandoned French farm house.  
  
"Herr Haupstrumfuhrer?"  
  
"Yes, what is it?" The blond haired officer turned.  
  
"The patrol found something , sir "  
  
"What is it?"  
  
The young leutnant just pointed, unable to speak.  
  
The Haupstrumfuhrer noticed the pale look on the young man's face, and when he walked outside and saw the shredded corpse lying on the ground he understood why.  
  
"What the hell is this?", he asked the patrols Sergeant who was standing nearby.  
  
"I don't know Herr Haupstrumfuhrer, it attacked us near the spot where we ambushed that column of British."   
  
"Hmpf. I think....yes ,this is the thing that led those idiot Tommy's past our positions.", The officer examined the body closely, "Was it necessary to shoot it so much?"  
  
The sergeant laughed,  
  
"The first fifty were brought it down, and after the next twenty it stopped twitching. But the other thirty shots might have been a bit much."  
  
There was a sudden flare-up of shooting,   
  
"Her Haupstrumfuhrer! We have strong enemy probes coming from all directions!"  
  
A Sherman tank rumbled out of some nearby woods, its cannon and machine guns spitting fire. A shell crashed into the farm house, the shockwave knocked the grenadiers to the ground.  
  
An antitank gun cracked, sending a round into the Sherman. The thinly armored tank "brewed up"  
  
in a massive fireball, as the tanks ammunition and fuel exploded. But more tank engines could be heard from the woods, advancing to the Waffen SS positions.   
  
"All units fall back", the Haupstrumfuhrer ordered, "And bring around my command vehicle!"  
  
The sudden Allied attack caused the SS soldiers to forget the shattered corpse lying in the poncho, and Demona was left lying in the farm house yard. As the SS command group evacuated, Demona slowly returned to life, her shattered body piecing itself together.  
  
"Major Canmore!" ,the Lieutenant shouted, "We've got the Jerry's on the run!"   
  
"Excellent, keep on them.", a line of Sherman tanks rumbled by, "How many of those have we lost?"  
  
"About two I think." the Lieutenant answered, "And the special patrol unit is assembled"  
  
"Good, I'll be leaving with them. Tell Captain Daniels that he's in charge until I get back."  
  
The British advance continued, as dawn crept over the French countryside. In the dim light the commander of a Sherman tank spotted a dozen retreating German armored cars speeding down a road.   
  
"FIRE!", the shell went wide, crashing into one of the massive hedgerows that lined the road. The Armored cars darted away down the road, disappearing around a corner.  
  
"After those bastards!", his tanks and the others behind them tore off after the Germans, as they pursued the Germans the claustrophobic hedgerows suddenly gave way to open fields. The lead Sherman stopped.  
  
"All right this might be a trap, everybody stay alert, and get into line",   
  
The column of tanks rolled out onto the field, spreading out into a skirmish line.   
  
Then a tank exploded in the roadway, blocking it. Than another was knocked out, and another and another.  
  
"JERRY EIGHTIE EIGHTS!" a British tanker shouted. He watched as the crew of a stricken tank attempting to bail out of their burning vehicle was machine gunned from behind.   
  
"And we've got German infantry in the rear!" he called over the radio just before his tank was hit with a Panzer Faust anti tank rocket.   
  
A Sherman crashed into the blazing hulk that was blocking the road, pushing it out of the way. A few tanks managed to escape down the road. The rest were knocked out one by one.  
  
Across the field a German officer lowered the binoculars with which he had been watching the one-sided battle.  
  
"Siegbert, tell the eighty eight battery to move back, we'll be counterattacking immediately."  
  
As he finished speaking a trio of P-38 Lighting ground attack fighters dove out of the sky.  
  
"JABOS!! TAKE COVER!" a Grenadier shouted, as the Lighting unleashed a torrent of rockets and machine guns on the German positions, shattering men and machines   
  
"Get the quad 40mms on those bastards!" the Haupstrumfuhrer ordered, his radioman began frantically relaying the orders over the command vehicles radio, but was cut off as the command vehicle was suddenly pounded by a barrage of rockets.  
  
After fire a few more rockets at the hedgerows, the P-38s flew away, out of ammunition. A Sdkfz251 halftrack painted with red crosses on the sides pulled up next to the remains of the command vehicle. A pair of medics leaped out and began searching for survivors. They found none, until the bleeding captain staggered out from behind a hedgerow and began limping towards one of the knocked out Sherman's.  
  
"Herr Haupstrumfuhrer!" one of the medics called and ran after the wounded officer, catching up he laid a hand on the officers shoulder, "Off," the officer grunted, "Herr Haupstrumfuhrer, your hit, we need to.." the officer smacked his hand away "I said off!" he shouted and drew the Luger from the holster he carried on his hip.  
  
The medic held his hands in the air and backed away, and the Officer continued on his painful journey. He pulled himself up on the Sherman and opened one of the hatches, reaching in he pulled out the charred corpse of the driver. He tore the unit insignia off the sleeve of the dead mans uniform, and read the notation aloud,  
  
"First Scottish guards." he threw the patch into a gasoline fueled blaze that had enveloped a Sherman.  
  
"I'll remember you." he turned back towards the remains of his shattered battle group 


	2. War story part II

(I apologize in advance for the atrocious German language used in the following, although I think I did pretty well for someone who learned their meager German vocabulary from playing Call of Duty)

Normandy, France

June 18 1944

A Sherman tank smoldered in the Farmyard. Jutting out of a nearby hedgerow was a German PAK 75 anti-tank gun, its crew dead, the gun commander lay across the receiver, his blood spattering the firing block. Dead soldiers, both British and German, were scattered around, and gathered around a stone statue that was very much out of place sprawled on the lawn, three women in the garb of French peasant women stood, deep in conversation.

"The child will make it through this war, as she has all the others." One said

"This war is different; the humans invent more powerful weapons every day." Another cautioned and the three stood in silence again, thinking

"It's only a matter of time before she is dealt harm that even her power cannot heal"

They thought over that. In the past four years, humanity had advanced beyond the sisters worst nightmares. Humanity had perfected weapons that should have taken years to build, perfected the warplane, advancing it from the rattle trap machines of the previous war to sleek, jet-propelled weapons as agile as birds, massive armored machines that pulled their dragged their weight across the battlefield spitting death from cannon and machine guns. Whole factories that had one purpose- to kill as many in a single day as was possible. Human scientists grew closer and closer to harnessing the power of the Atom every hour. War tactics advanced hourly, as soldiers came up with new ways to kill and their opponents strove to counter them. Emerging from the slaughter that gripped the planet was something new.

Modern warfare, and not even the Children of Oberon were sure they could be safe from the human's war machines anymore. This worried the sisters, and they could not wait.

"We must take our child away from this place." They decided. The air began to crackle and the Fay magic's cast an eerie green glow across the ground. The statue was engulfed in a ball of green flame, and it began to lift off the ground.

So concentrated on their efforts were the Weird Sisters, they never noticed the whistling noise that filled air.

Suddenly the world around the sisters erupted in flame. An artillery barrage landed squarely on the farm. Shell fragments ripped through the air, peppering the sisters with shrapnel. Panicked by the sudden barrage the sisters disappeared in three sudden pinpoints of light.

Nearby the Hunter stared in shock at was what left of his battalion. A day of Vicious German counterattacks and ambushes had taken a high toll. Only massive air and artillery support had managed to prevent his command from being overrun, as it was his troops had been reduced to two badly reduced companies and a platoon of tanks that were running low on ammunition and fuel. Even worse, he had searched the entire area and had not found any sign of the Demon.

"Major Canmore!" a young radio operator called

"What is it Corporal?"

"Sir I was just on the line with command, they say that they can't send any reinforcements, because there's a Division of _SS _between us and the rest of the Army group." The Corporals voice bordered on hysterical.

The Major balled his hands into fists, and his face turned red with frustration.

"GOD DAMN THOSE GERMAN BASTRADS!" he yelled "Don't they bloody know that I'm out here fighting for the good of humanity, the fucking demon doesn't care whose side we're on..." he kept ranting on, oblivious to the stares of his soldiers as they watch their commander scream and yell like the spoiled aristocrat he was. Surely, they thought, the Germans had to have officers just as bad.

"_Herr Haupstrumfuhrer_ what are you doing out of hospital?" the startled _Leutnant _asked.

The blond _SS _officer stood in the doorway, the waning sunlight highlighting the blood stained bandages that wrapped his head and right arm. But he stood without support and that had been good enough for the _SS _Medics at the field hospital to release him back to his unit. That and a cocked P-38 pistol....

"What's the situation?" he asked. Judging from the blazing vehicles he had passed on the way back from the hospital it wasn't good.

"We managed to push the Tommy's back from the positions they took from us yesterday, but the Jabo's gave us a very rough handling"

"Our losses?" the _Haupstrumfuhrer _asked

"The Eighty-Eights are gone; the armored car companies are each about half strength, and the squadron of Panthers is down to just two machines, but we still have the Panzer_ Grenadier _Company at close to full strength, and the Flak unit is basically in one piece"

The _Haupstrumfuhrer _raised an eyebrow. He expected the Flak to have been hit hardest, as the allied aircraft would definitely want to knock out the anti-aircraft guns first.

"I know what you're thinking _Herr Haupstrumfuhrer_, but Mobbs is no coward, the only reason they took light losses was because his trucks ran out of gas before they could get to the front, and the allies have been shooting up our supply convoys so we've had no resupply all day"

"Have we been resupplied since then?"

"A few truck loads have managed to get through, and all the vehicles have been refueled."

Excellent, lets get moving."

The _Leutnant_ look at the growing darkness outside

"But..."

"If we're meant to wipe these Limeys out, we'll need to do it at night when their aircraft can't get at us."

"Wipe them out?"

"_Ja, _the orders come straight from division HQ. That battalion is now twelve Kilometers behind the frontlines, and we've got to eliminate these fucks before they wreak some kind of havoc in our rear areas." Brushing his hair off his forehead the SS officer put his peaked cap back on, "HQ has detached some _Nebelwerfer's _for fire support, as well as a battery of one-oh-fives, we should also be gettingsome more _Grenadier_ companies and a few _Whermacht Jagdpanthers_ too."

"Alright, lets get moving"

Demona awoke to find herself on the surface of the moon. The ground around her was a mass of shell craters, shattered bodies, and uprooted trees. Shaking off the last of her stone skin, she stood up and took a closer look at her surroundings. Noticing a nearby dead German soldier, she examined him closer, and saw that his MP-40 submachine gun was lying intact nearby. Demona picked up the _Schmisser_ and checked to see if it was loaded. It was. She searched the dead Germans ammo pouches and found three more magazines for the MP-40. She tucked them under her belt and walked away.

Suddenly the quiet was shattered by the sound of gun fire.

"Major Canmore we..." a burst of machine fire stopped the Sergeant in mid-sentence. As he slumped to the ground, a Sherman tank suddenly brewed up as an _SS_ trooper fired a _Panzerfaust_ into the turret from a second story window. A German armored car crashed through a building and onto the street, and another Sherman fired its cannon into the cars flank at point blank range, destroying it with a single shot. Further down the street, German and British infantry exchanged shots from nearly identical positions across the street from one another; the two sides were so close that they yelled obscenities at each other in between shooting. The sky glowed orange with the flames that leapt from burning houses. Most of the French town where Canmore's battalion had

sought refuge was ablaze or leveled, and his men were desperately clinging to the buildings around the town center. From somewhere in the distant there came the low rumble of artillery, and shells began to rain down on what was left of the town's city hall, which the British were using as a temporary filed hospital. As the ruined building came crashing to the ground, a Panther tank moved up the street, its cannon firing away at British positions. _SS_ troopers advanced along side it, keeping back British troops who were trying to get close enough to hit it with anti-tank weapons. As the battalions' last Sherman tank was knocked out by the Panther, the _SS_ troopers found a hole in the British perimeter and began to pour through it.

"Fall back!" Canmore ordered, "fall back to the church!"

"What the hell do you mean?" a nearby soldier demanded, "We're dead either way!" A snipers bullet punched through his eye, and the Major dove behind a low brick wall.

"SNIPER!" he shouted.

"I see the bastard! Second story of the tavern!" A hail of bullets peppered the window the soldier had indicated, and a K-98 snipers rifle fell to the street.

"All right back to the church!"

The remaining British soldiers fell back.

"_Herr Haupstrumfuhrer!_"

"_Vas?" _the _SS_ officer asked the young _Leutnant._

Demona crouched behind a bush, listening to the German officers converse. She knew for a fact that the Hunter was in this village, she had seen him lead his troops into it.

It was only a matter of time before he was flushed out, and then she could do some hunting of her own.

"_Der Tommies sin retreatan to der church._"

"_Zerr gut, moven up der Jagdpanther's und blasten der shiessekopf's out"_

Demona carefully crept away, and moved into the blazing French town, keeping to the shadows.

The massive Jagdpanther dragged it's weight up the street, stopping a few dozen meters from the church. After a pause of a few seconds, the Jagdpanthers gun roared, sending an eighty-eight millimeter shell crashing into the Church's oak doors.

From a cross road on the other side of the church a second Jagdpanther opened fire, pounding the church with high-explosive shells. The British soldiers inside huddled under a few battered pews as the remains of stained glass windows rained down like multi-colored shrapnel. As a third Jagdpanther added its fire, a whole side of the church collapsed outwards, sending rubble and clouds of dust into the surrounding streets.

After another three salvos rocked the ancient church to its foundation, the _Haupstrumfuhrer _ordered the assault guns to hold their fire.

Carrying a pillowcase tied to a piece of a wrought iron fence, he approached the church.

"Englanders! We have you surrounded, there is no way your army can come to rescue you! Give up now while you still have your lives!" he called out in English.

In response a British soldier fired a burst of machine gun fire at the _SS_ officer, who dropped to the ground and rolled behind cover just as the bullets whizzed overhead.

Waiting for a response like this, the Leutnant ordered the _Nebelwerfer_ multiple-rocket launchers to open fire. The "Moaning Minnie's" as the rocket launchers were called by Allied soldiers, opened up with a withering barrage of rockets, the wailing projectiles created a terrific crescendo as they pummeled the remains of the church with fire.

After a full three minutes of firing the rocket launchers fell silent. The _SS_ officer emerged from the ruined house were he had taken cover. Motioning his troops forward, he advanced on the church, the _SS_ troopers moving up behind him. The SS troopers paused at the doorway, one tossed a hand grenade through the door, after it went off the SS troopers dashed inside, sweeping the room with their rifles, searching for targets. Nothing in the church was moving, and shattered corpses were spread all over the church.

The Haupstrumfuhrer paused over a British soldier who leaned against a wall, staring dumbfounded at his shattered legs. The SS officer placed the barrel of his MP-40 to the mortally wounded soldiers head and pulled the trigger. Around him the SS troopers fired single shots as they dispatched other wounded soldiers. Near the back of the church the _SS_ troopers found an entrance to the church's catacombs.

An SS trooper pulled a grenade from his belt, primed it, and tossed it inside. The explosion had an echo that seemed to last forever, another _SS _trooper examined a bloody footprint at the top of the steps leading down into the dark tunnels.

"Looks like they ran down into the tunnels _Herr Haupstrumfuhrer_ "

"Well, let's go get them then."

One of the carvings over the church alter suddenly moved, its fiery red hair standing out in the like a beacon in the shadows. Demona leapt down from the alter, and followed the _SS_ troopers down into the catacombs.

"There right behind us Major" the soldier whispered.

"Alright we'll hit them right here, everybody take cover" he whispered back, the battered squad of British soldiers sought cover behind the rows of caskets in the burial chamber they had stumbled into.

Flashlight beams pierced the gloom as _SS_ troopers moved into the chamber, searching for the last remnants of the British battalion.

"FIRE!"

Gunfire erupted, the noise of the rifles and machineguns amplified tenfold by the confined space, some one threw a hand grenade, its blast nearly deafening everyone in the catacombs. The SS troopers were quickly mowed down, and the firing died down. "God Dammit, cease fire!" the Major ordered.

"Wasn't us sir! I think the Jerry's found lieutenant Mills and his chaps."

The echo of gunfire ceased. Before any of the British soldiers could wonder aloud about the outcome of the battle, a satchel charge was tossed into the burial chamber.

"FUCKING HELL!" Canmore shouted, and leapt down a nearby side tunnel.

The rest of his squad was not so lucky, and they were buried alive under several tons of rock. The Major managed to get to his feet and stumble away down the tunnel.

Ahead in the dark he saw the light from a flashlight beam, as he approached he saw that the light was in the hand of a dead British soldier. He had found Leutnant Mills.

Dead bodies littered the tunnel, German and British, dead almost in each others arms.

Canmore passed a British private who died jamming a bayonet into a German sergeant, who died firing his pistol into the Britishers stomach. Picking up a Lee-Enfield rifle from a dead soldier, he ran as quickly as he could down a different tunnel.

Rounding a corner, he came face to face with an _SS_ officer. The officer knocked him to the ground, the hunter leveled his rifle, but when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The rifle was empty. The _Haupstrumfuhrer_ kicked the rifle away, sending it skittering down the tunnel floor. The SS officer brought up his MP-40, but before he could fire, another MP-40 blasted him from the darkness. A look of shock on his face, he fell to the cold stone floor.

"Sorry to interrupt but this one belongs to me." Demona growled.

She bent down and ripped the hunters mask off. She stared at him watching his eyes fill with absolute terror. Demona took her MP-40 by the barrel; she started to bash his head with the pistol grip, the red glow of her eyes bathing the tunnel with an eerie light. As she slowly regained control, Demona noticed that she had bent the barrel of the machine pistol to an almost ninety degree angle. Casting the useless weapon aside, she looked at the shattered Hunter sprawled before her. She began to laugh; this hunt had come out very different than the ones before it! She now knew how to deal with the hunters, and.

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

The _SS_ officer had drawn his pistol, and was firing away as he struggled to his feet. Surprised by this sudden onslaught Demona whirled around, and let loose with the first magic spell that came to mind. There was a flash, than a wall of fire surged towards the German Officer,and when it passed, he had disapeared completly. Demona leaned against the wall, watching the bullet holes in her chest slowly melt away. "Oh hell.", she whispered, realizing what spell she had used.

Castle Wyvern, 1998

A ball of fire erupted over the courtyard, depositing a the German officer in midair. He came crashing to the ground, smacking into the hard flagstones of the castle. He lay motionless, until finally he lifted his head. The SS officer found himself staring into the eyes of a seven-foot, lavender hued,winged giant. "Who.. what.. what are you doing here?!" he stammered. The German soldier grinned, and said "I wish I knew.", then he did the only thing he could think of. He passed out.


End file.
